The fight against COVID-19 in your community could start in your medicine cabinet. Earlier this month, the Biden Administration announced it would be spending $2 billion on rapid testing to be distributed to food banks, prisons, shelters, and community health centers so more people can get tested and get their results quickly. They also announced they would be asking large retailers to sell the at-home tests at costs for the next three months as Delta variant continues to spread throughout the area. Since that announcement and the mandate that employees at businesses with more than 100 people either get vaccinated or be subject to more testing, the at-home tests have been harder the find. Door County Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jim Heise says the rapid tests, which detect the proteins from the virus that causes COVID-19, work well if you have symptoms but it should not be treated as the gold standard.

Door County Medical Center recently added more equipment to process the PCR tests, which are considered to be more accurate than the rapid tests, faster. Unlike earlier in the pandemic when it would take days to get results, now most people who get tested can find out if they are positive or negative with a PCR test within 24 hours.